A 3-Step ‘Whey’ to Help Maintain Muscle with Aging

Many of your clients may think muscle loss is only something they need to worry about later in life. However, data show the progressive loss of muscle (3 to 8 percent per decade) can begin as early as the 30s or 40s.

Maintaining adequate or optimal muscle mass is important to support well-being and daily activity for healthy aging. While some loss of muscle is inevitable, there are things we can encourage our clients to do to help minimize this loss and support healthy aging:

1. Participate in regular resistance exercise

2. Maximize the value of dietary protein

Whey is a dairy protein that is naturally in milk. When educating on protein’s role in the diet and health, it’s important to:

1. Understand current protein recommendations including the distinction between the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA, which is the minimum amount to meet the needs of most healthy people, and the Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range (AMDR), with is associated with reduced risk of chronic disease.

- Account for your client or patient’s needs based on body weight as well as activity level, among other things.

2. Consider protein quality and how to help people plan meals to include a source of high quality protein at each meal and snack versus all at once at the end of the day.

3. Based on emerging research, many experts recommend focusing not just on total protein consumption, but also on the timing/distribution of protein across the day to help ensure its efficient use by the body.

For additional free information to download and share, please visit our Whey Protein microsite for more recipes, educational materials and research about the power of whey protein.